54 minutes agoShareSaveJude SheerinBBC News, WashingtonShareSaveUS President Donald Trump will host Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday for their first meeting since the pair’s heated exchange in the White House earlier this year – but this time the Ukrainian president is bringing European allies.Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte and UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer are among leaders who will join Zelensky in Washington for talks on how to end the war with Russia.It follows Trump’s summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Alaska that resulted in the US president dropping a demand for a ceasefire and calling instead for a permanent peace deal.A US envoy said on Sunday that Putin had agreed to a possible Nato-like security pact for Ukraine.”BIG PROGRESS ON RUSSIA. STAY TUNED!” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, without elaborating.Also heading to Washington for Monday’s meeting are French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. It is unclear how many of them will go to the White House.For so many heads of state to travel with such little notice across the Atlantic to what is essentially a wartime crisis meeting appears without precedent in the modern era, underscoring the sky-high stakes.Diplomatic sources say European officials are concerned that Trump may try to press Zelensky to agree to terms, after the Ukrainian leader was excluded from the Trump-Putin meeting on US soil last Friday.But US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the BBC’s US partner CBS that any suggestion Zelensky might be bullied by Trump into accepting a peace deal was a “stupid media narrative”.Nato leaders also appear eager to avoid a repeat of Zelensky’s February trip to the Oval Office that ended abruptly after an argument with Trump and US Vice-President JD Vance.The altercation – which saw Trump accuse Zelensky of “gambling with World War Three” – left Washington-Kyiv ties in tatters.But European leaders have been working diligently behind the scenes since then to mend the relationship. The Ukrainian leader has been coached to talk in terms of deal-making – language that resonates with Trump.In April, Ukraine signed a minerals agreement that gave the US a financial stake in the country, and Trump and Zelensky spoke privately at the Vatican before Pope Francis’s funeral. Ukraine made clear it was willing to pay for US weapons.By July, the two leaders had a phone call that the Ukrainian president described as “the best conversation we have had”.Meanwhile, Trump had begun to express exasperation with Russia’s unrelenting onslaught in Ukraine. He called Putin “absolutely crazy”, drastically shortened his deadline for a peace deal, and threatened economic sanctions on Moscow.As these deliberations grind on, Russian forces continue to advance on the battlefield. They now occupy almost a fifth of Ukraine since Moscow …
